In Quaaludes and Red Wine
by swabloo
Summary: Stiles remembers a time before he was 'stiles', back when it was just him and his mum, and he'd call her 'anyuci' and babble at her in a mix of her mother tongue and English and wherever they were at the time.


A/N: A little bit stream of consciousness, because it's told from Stiles' POV and he's a kid for quite a while and it's _Stiles_.

And oh my god, I wrote all of this in one go, and it's the first thing i've written in a _year_ like what, i've suddenly got some mojo back fancy that and maybe it's because the Teen Wolf fandom kind of consumed me for a little bit there not long ago and jeez, this was fun.

I noticed there weren't many crossovers in the Teen Wolf fandom that weren't like 'oh, Sam and Dean Winchester notice that there's werewolves in Beacon Hills so they go take a look-see.' which is good, and i've read a couple that i've liked, but I got a hankerin' for something a bit _different_. And I'm a crossover girl at heart, so this pained me to my core, and I felt the need to add my own two cents. So much LOVE if any of you guys wanna rec me some cool crossovers in the comments.

I'm going on holiday tomorrow and I'll have a LOT of free time, so i'm thinking about continuing this. Yes? No?

**In Quaaludes and Red Wine**

**Part One**

Stiles remembers a time before he was _'stiles'_, back when it was just him and his mum, and he'd call her _anyuci _and babble at her in a mix of her mother tongue and English and wherever they were at the time.

He didn't really have a home then, in the sense of one place he could call to. He remembers that they travelled a lot; warm places and cold places and places so hot he could barely see through the sweat. He thinks that movement was the constant of his youth. Which was good, because new things and places were _distracting_, and his mind would whirl a mile a minute and it was good, he liked seeing new things all the time, liked that they bounced about the roads about as often as his focus could stick and wander.

He tried a different nickname in every different place, because it was fun and he liked being someone new and remaking his image and it wasn't like anyone but his mummy could say his real name right anyway.

They didn't take much with them as they travelled. They had a few changes of clothes and food and water and money. They didn't really need anything else; they talked, and she told him stories that she didn't need to read from a book, and she taught him things like numbers and puzzles and how to practice sounds right so that he could say the letters from more than one alphabet. Then when they would stop for a bit and have time, she'd get some paper and a pen and go through the numbers and shapes with him, and then make him correspond through loads of different shapes that were supposed to go with all the different sounds and words she'd been teaching him.

When he'd meet other kids his own age he would try to play but they just treated him weird and called him _foreign_ and said they couldn't understand him even though he could understand them, and he didn't really get _why, _because he knew he was making the sounds right, and why did it matter if he'd call the ball they played with _pelota_ or _labda_ or _шар _or _tufe_ because it all meant the same thing really. Like how he'd call his mummy different sounds like _mama _or _anyuci_ or _nana _or _mére_ or _mutter_. Then when he cried about it, his mummy would wrap him tight in her arms and cuddle him and tell him that one day they'd settle down, and when they did they would put more focus on learning the sounds of one language over all the others, but she didn't know which one it would be yet, because she didn't know where their travelling would stop.

Then one day they went through this small town and she stopped at the market and he was right next to her, but then he saw some flowers that were bright splashes of colour and interesting because they were covered in butterflies, and he didn't mean to but he followed the colours as they lazily drifted away and he knew he was supposed to be paying attention, but mummy was talking to the woman behind the counter, and the patterns on those wings were interesting and the way they moved was _distracting. _He didn't realise that he'd turned a few corners and moved too far until the butterfly flew up and away where he couldn't follow, and then he stopped and looked around and realised he didn't know where he was and that he couldn't see his mummy anywhere.

He knew what she told him to do whenever he got lost; to hide and stay put, because so long as she was anywhere near, she'd always find him. But he was by the edge of these big trees, and suddenly he saw this big dog thing that was kind of like a dog but bigger and kind of scary and its eyes kind of glowed blue and it made him panic so he ran, and his heart was pounding and he didn't know where he was going, just knew that he was scared because he was alone and didn't want to be eaten by a big dog thing because in all the fairytales it said that eating little kids was what big dog things _did_.

So he ran, until suddenly he stopped when he rushed into the side of something large and sturdy and a large, warm hand was gripping gently on his shoulder.

"Woah, hey, kid, slow down," said a man, and it was a nice warm voice, so Stiles looked up and saw that the voice was attached to the hand that held him steady.

"You okay? Where's your mom?"

Stiles felt his breathing go faster as his face scrunched up and panicked because he didn't know the answer.

"lost! Don't know where mi madre es! Quiero meine mutter!" He thinks he might have been crying, because it was a little hard to breathe, like there was this huge lump in his throat made of hot wood that splintered and made him feel kind of shaky and twisted like a knot.

The man crouched down and smiled this big warm smile. "Hey, kid, it's alright. I'll help you find your mom. You're bilingual, right? Is English one of your languages? I've got a cousin who's bilingual; I could only ever get half of what she said when we were little, but she said she could always understand me. Do you know what I'm saying? Do you understand English?"

His voice was a steady stream of soothing, calm and balanced. Stiles found himself focusing on the words, and nodded, because yes, he knew what the man was saying.

"Alright," said the man, "Well, there can't be that many missing bilingual kids out today. Do you want to come with me for a bit? I'm a deputy, it's alright, I can take you to the police station and we'll get the word out and your mom can meet us there, okay?"

Stiles sniffed, and nodded, and took the man's hand and clutched it. Right, he knew what police were, they were those people who protected other people, weren't they? He watched this show once and the police in it caught this robber, and while Stiles wasn't a thief, he remembers that the policeman in the show returned the necklace to the woman it belonged to and they did things like that, didn't they? They fixed things, picked them up again. His mummy had said that the police were there to help. Even if they didn't always know what they were doing.

"'kay," he mumbled, and hid his face in the man's shirt when he was picked up.

Everything was a little bit of a blur as they walked and then went inside this building, where he could feel the rumbling through the man's chest as he talked to other people. Then he was carefully sat down on this comfy chair, and the man sat down next to him and smiled.

"Hey, kid. How you doing?"

Stiles shrugged.

"Do you want some water? Juice? You hungry, maybe?"

Stiles shook his head.

"Right, good. So. Could you tell me your name? And your mom's name? We want to be able to tell her that your here, and get her attention, yeah?" He paused, and then squinted a little bit. "I'm John, by the way; call me John."

Stiles squinted back and wondered if he should bother giving his name, because he didn't think the man would say it right anyway, and if he said it wrong then it wouldn't be _his _name and it would sound wrong and how would mummy know it was him if it sounded like a different name?

Stiles squinted back at the man, and frowned.

John smiled at him. "Alright. How old are you?"

"This many," Stiles said, and rose four fingers, because he was thinking the number inégy/i, but when he thought through the sound of the word in his head, it didn't feel like it belonged to the same family of sounds that the man was talking to him with.

"Alright," said the man, who then looked up at someone else. "You got that, Ben?"

And then the other man – Ben – nodded, and walked off with the information. John and Stiles kept talking, and John kept trying to get his name, but Stiles was nothing if not stubborn. John got him some paper and pencils and they drew together, and John had this cool cube he could play with, this cube thing made of smaller coloured cubes and it was like a puzzle box where he had to figure out how to align the pattern correctly, only it didn't open when he finished it.

And then it seemed like no time at all before his Mummy was there with him, and she was running her hands over his head and peppering him with kisses and telling him off for wandering away and scaring her. Then she and John were talking and Stiles frowned and squinted because they were being _weird_ and he thinks maybe John's ears weren't so red earlier. He didn't really pay attention though because it was boring grown-up talk, so he went back to the desk and kept drawing until her hand was on his shoulder again, and she told him that John was taking them to dinner, and he got up and got picked up and babbled at them both about what he'd been drawing.

Then John bought them dinner and gave extra ice-cream to Stiles and they went back to John's home and he got tired so he fell asleep curled up on the sofa with a hot chocolate, and he woke up a little bit few times later on, and his mummy and John were still talking on the sofa, and neither of their hot drinks had been touched. Stiles just went back to sleep, lulled by the gentle, soothing cadence of both adult voices mixing smoothly together.

John said they could sleep over, because his house was big enough and there wasn't anyone else there. "Hey baby," his mummy said the next day when she was giving him a bath in John's tub and playing with the bubbles, "What do you think of John?"

Stiles looked down at the bubbles and fiddled his fingers through the messy foam, squeezing the broken patterns swirling patterns back together. "He's really nice," said Stiles, "I like him."

His mummy grinned. "I like him too."

And then they didn't really leave after that, and Stiles figured that Beacon Hills was a nice enough place to stop travelling, because John was here and he was nice and fun and gave really good hugs and made his mum laugh a lot.

It was just under a year later when he got a new name. _Stilinski. _It was John's name, and his mum's now too. His mummy told him it would be a real name, not just another nickname. But it was still kind of long and hard to say and he thought he kind of liked to shorten it and make a name that was just _his_ and no one else's.

He liked the way his new name curled around the edges of his tongue. He liked the sound of _Stiles_.

"bogárkám, where are you?" his mother sounded from somewhere above him, exasperated. Stiles wriggled out from under the cabinet.

"I'm not a little bug!" he said, frowning at the nickname.

She smirked at him, and ruffled his hair then tweaked his nose when he squawked. "You are when you're crawling around like that, kicsikém."

He huffed, "and i'm not little! I'm big, now!"

"Oh yes," said his mummy, drawling it out, "Five years old is so big now. You have been promoted from ankle-biter to knee-nibbler."

Stiles opened his mouth to reply, but stopped when he saw someone standing just behind her. It was a tall man, with dark hair and eyes that looked at him with warmth, even as something about him made Stiles shiver.

"There's someone special I want you to meet," said his mummy, and she smiled this genuine, huge smile that radiated.

The man crouched down in front of Stiles. "Hello little one," he said, and his voice was strong and smooth.

"He's family, Stiles. This is the man who found me when I was young and practically raised me."

Stiles was surprised; his mummy had told him the story, that it had happened a long time ago and that he was a man they could trust. But it had been a story, because his mummy talked about a lot of things from the life she had before Stiles, but he'd never met anyone from it before.

Stiles considered the man carefully. "You look too young to be my Grandpa," he declared, and the man quirked his eyebrows at him. "Scott's grandpa looks like he's got all this extra skin on his neck and his face is really wrinkled and he walks really slow."

Mummy choked back a half-stuck quick laugh. "Oh honey, he's older than he looks."

The man smiled. "We've got good genes."

Stiles thinks he knows what genes are. "Are you Hungarian like mummy too?"

The man's smile quirked a little bit mischievous. "That's where I found her, yes."

"Oh!" Said Stiles, because it made more sense now. Because this man must be foreign, like them, so he couldn't really be called 'grandpa', could he?

"It's nice to meet you, Nagyapa," he said, because sometimes he remembered his manners and John (_call me 'Dad'_) had said that if he was meeting a new adult and didn't know their name it was kind of respectful to call them by their title. Stiles thinks Dad was talking more about how he'd been giving nicknames to all the other deputy's down at the station, but Stiles figures it applies here too and besides, he kind of likes that he has a Nagyapa now.

But this man isn't really a stranger, he's Stiles' _nagyapa,_ so he throws himself forward and gives the man a big, squeezy hug. He feels big arms close around him and squeeze back, and a huff of breath against the back of his neck.

The man pulls away enough to look at Stile's face, and grins wide enough to light up his eyes and pats Stiles on the head.

"Well, aren't you a cute one," he says. "What's your name?"

"Zibelthiurdos," he tells him, because nagyapa is foreign like them so he can probably handle it.

His nagyapa laughs, deep and amused, and looks back up at his mummy. "Storm and lightening. My dear, you're so subtle."

Mummy huffs. "Shut up, it's a nice name, I like it. That's why I _picked_ it."

The man hummed, eyes glittering. "I should have known not to let you name something by yourself. As I recall, you had that cat that was accused of witchcraft solely on the basis of that ihideous/i name you gave it."

Stiles scowls. "My name isn't hideous!"

His nagyapa's eyes soften as they look back to him. "No, of course it's not. It's just a little hard to say. It's a lovely name. It suits you."

The man hugs him again, and drops a soft peck to the crown of his head.

Mummy offers nagyapa a drink, and Stiles takes a glass of juice and tries to mimic him as the other man sprawls on the sofa next to Stiles because his nagyapa is _really cool,_ and Stiles spends the rest of the man's visit following him around.

John joins them and takes a drink too, and Stiles lets himself drift with the sound of his family talking all around him and falls asleep in nagyapa's lap to the rumble of his and dad's voices as they murmur quietly.

Stiles likes Scott. They're definitely best friends forever; have been, ever since they met on the playground at four years old and got on _brilliantly _despite Scott being a little slow and Stiles being a little fast. Scott didn't laugh when Stiles couldn't remember the right word in English, and reacted to Stile's tone and sounds and movements rather than the actual words whenever he began babbling in different languages. Stiles thinks Scott is fantastic; he's funny and likes video games and rolling around through the mud and trees and he sneaks an extra lollipop for Stiles whenever he goes to the dentist.

Stiles doesn't bring up the visit from his nagyapa, though, because even though he's excited and wants to compare grandpa stories, mummy told him it was kind of like a family secret and that he shouldn't really say too much about his nagyapa to other people, even Scott. And Stiles thinks about the things he overheard when they thought he was asleep and out of earshot and they were kind of weird and he doesn't really get what it was about, but the snatches of conversation that he heard were probably part of the family secret too – and he knows himself, knows his head, the way he runs his mouth and can't shut up, so he keeps quiet about all of it because he doesn't want to accidentally let anything slip out.

So he keeps nagyapa to himself, and then after the man is gone, Stiles phones him and sends him letters because he likes the contact and nagyapa always laughs at his jokes and it's really fun to get letters back in the post, they're like presents just for him, and getting post his so cool because dad and mummy get post all the time and it makes him feel like he's doing something grown-up. And it's so much easier to say what he means without all the extra distraction when he can spend as much time on writing a letter as he wants and can make the ink spread across the paper however he wants. And when he puts in all the extra stuff and writes pages and pages, nagyapa always talks back and reads and listens to him, and Stiles thinks this is so much _better _than a penpal or a grandpa _combined _because it's _nagyapa _so it's all of that and more.

It makes Stiles feel kind of warm and fuzzy and happy, feel a bit funny and kind of like his heart is full, because it's not just him and mummy any more, there's dad and Scott and nagyapa now too.

Stiles always addresses his letters to _'Nagyapa'_, continues to do so even when the man later tells him in one of his letters that he's thinking about going by the name of Adam, for a while.

When Stiles is eight, he's on a school trip in a city with Scott, and the whole group has stopped for lunch when he starts to feel strange.

Scott notices his frown. "What's up?"

Stiles doesn't really know. "I dunno, feels like I'm being watched or something." He looks around, and there's loads of people milling around; old men feeding birds and young men chatting with young ladies and other kids running around and –

_There_, he thinks, when he spots a stranger looking. It's a big man – tall and broad, wearing a long leather coat. He's got ruddy, scarred skin and blond hair bleached almost white. Even at this distance, stiles think he can feel the other man's eyes dig like hot coals into his skin. He shivers.

He turns back to Scott. "Just a weirdo, whatever," and bites into his sandwich and tries to ignore how it feels like he's being followed, because their coach is due to pick them up in a few hours so it doesn't really matter what might be happening if he's gone soon, right?

But after he's back home, the feeling doesn't stop. Sometimes when he's at school, he thinks he catches a glimpse of bright blond. He might think it was all made up in his head, but mum and dad are suddenly weirdly tense all of the time, and they never leave him alone; he feels like he's being escorted everywhere by an armed guard, and he can't help the horrible feeling that after he went on that trip he brought something horrible back with him.

He hears them whispering quietly to each other at night.

"He knows where we live, where he goes to school, and I can't – " the end of the sentence is bitten off with a frustrated hiss, and Stiles is already regretting hearing his dad say that because this sounds like one of those iadult conversations/ithat he's really, really not supposed to eavesdrop on.

Stiles strains to hear, and gets back into the conversation partway.

" – say when he would get here?" Asks John.

"Soon," says his mum. "As fast as he can. Tomorrow, I think."

His dad sighs. "We should have called him sooner, we should've –"

"We didn't _know_," stresses his mum. "We've done what we can. This guy... He's not following any of the rules. And he's not working alone. I can't – I can't take care of him, by myself. He's threatening Stiles, and I can't leave Stiles alone to go after him, because if I _do _and I _miss_ or, or miscalculate or he out-manoeuvres me then Stiles will be alone, and..." there's a long pause.

"Well," continues his mum, "at least we can count on good ol' _nagyapa_ to get here soon and help take care of this... problem_. _I swear – we were on speakerphone, and I've never heard a man pack up and go so fast before. Or swear so creatively in Latin. Or maybe it was pig Latin for all we know, the service was kind of sketchy, and you just know he's just pretending to be all wise and knowing to get us to buy him more beer like that time in Greece with the Frenchman and the goat –"

"Honey," John cuts her off, sounding faintly amused, "You're rambling again. See, this is where Stiles gets it. We're going to catch him coming downstairs in an hour for a glass of water, and he'll get distracted mid-pour and reorganise the contents of the fridge again."

His mum makes this kind of ragged sound, like its half a laugh and half a deep, cracking sob, and Stiles doesn't think he can listen anymore so he quietly creeps back up the stairs and figures he's not going to try and get any water tonight after all, but he doesn't really care because he's still trying to figure out what it exactly it was that he just heard. He knows that there's a problem, and that it's his fault that his mum can't fix it faster, and that his nagyapa is visiting really soon. And he doesn't really get what's going on, but he's been catching sight of bright blond from the corner of his eye for a few days now and his parents have been getting more tense and upset and he constantly feels on edge, but he thinks that it'll somehow soon be over, and then they can all go back to being normal.

Nagyapa doesn't get there in time.

It happens the next morning, when his mum's driving him to school. They're chatting away and the radio's on, and just as they reach the space where there's more trees than houses, his mum suddenly snaps her head to the side, eyes wide, and it's like the car is filled with electricity – and then all he understands is that there's loud noises like metal on metal and a collision that rattles the entire car, rattles his bones, and they're moving – they're moving wrong, the car's twisting and turning and the change in the side pocket is flying in the air and the windows are caving in, everything's groaning, there's a screeching and a smash and a loud bang –

And for a moment, everything is horribly still.

His whole world teeters on an edge. He opens his eyes and takes a deep, rasping gasp. He can't hear anything over the ringing in his ears and his heartbeat.

"Stuh – Stiles –"

He looks over, and there's his mum, pulled into her seat by the belt and there's something wrong, there's red around her mouth and he thinks he sees something wet glistening on her body – but her eyes are bright and clear and determined, and holds his gaze.

"Zibelthiurdos," she says, and it's a name that she drags out hard, a struggle to run out all those consonants in one last breath. "Run."

He doesn't understand.

"Run!" She heaves at him, and he feels her press something intangible against him, crackling, and he needs to go, needs to get out, to move, but he can't, because mum –

And then he hears footsteps, loud and awful and thinks he sees a flash of bright blond hair in the distance.

His mum is cold steel. She undoes the seatbelt and catches herself against the car as it lets her go. He sees her grab the handle of something metal and _sharp_.

She just looks at him for a moment. "I love you," she says in one breath. "Go!" she shouts in the next, desperately.

The footsteps outside crunch on glass. He panics, and he goes.

And then he's running and running and he can't breathe and all he can hear is his heart beating too quickly, too loudly – and then this wave of something _awful _hits him and he staggers and stops breathing because it's electric and _familiar _– it's a sound of thunder and a flash of lightning somewhere behind him –

And he can't run anymore because he thinks he's having a panic attack and he sees a flash of blue eyes coming towards him in the forest that he's running through and he thinks it might be a wolf-

But it's not, because suddenly there's a man there and he's catching Stiles as he falls to the ground with a worried shout, but Stiles doesn't hear him anymore because it's too much and he can feel the faint electricity crackling in the distance and he doesn't _understand._

The last thing he thinks before he collapses into unconsciousness is that the man that caught him has really blue eyes.

Stiles woke up disorientated, in a room he didn't' know. He thinks it must be the hospital, because the walls are really white and there's odd machines around the room and his dad is in a chair, asleep by the bed, and the man looks _wrecked_.

Stiles feels his heart clench. He must have made a noise, because his dad startles awake.

"Stiles?" The man asks, bringing the chair forward, and reaching up to hold his hands. "How are you feeling?"

"Sore. What – what happened? Is this... Why am I in the hospital?"

His dad's eyes shutter, and something grim passes over his whole body. John doesn't look like he's slept in days.

"You – you were in a... a car accident. You got out, and Peter Hale found you – you know, from the Hale house up by the preserve? – and he brought you here."

Stiles feels stunned and sick to his stomach. The memory of the incident is coming back in flashes, in bits and pieces, blurry snapshots that tremble. "I – what? Is – where's mom?"

And then Stiles is pulled into the biggest, saddest hug he's ever felt. "I'm sorry Stiles, oh god, so sorry, she didn't – she didn't make it –"

And John might be saying something else but Stiles can't hear anymore because of the ringing in his ears and he think he stopped breathing because this _can't_ be real, it _can't_-

The next time he wakes up, nagyapa is standing in his hospital room. He's looking at Stiles with this great deep _grief_ and sadness, and Stiles leans into his touch when the man leans down and curves over him, stroking his hair.

"Did you get them, Methos?" his dad asks from the other side of the bed. There's something kind of dark about the words, about how he spoke them.

Something settles over his nagyapa. "I got them," he says, with a cut of hard coldness.

John nods, and Stiles thinks they're exchanging some kind of significant glances but he's not really sure what it's about because he's still really sleepy and only half awake. He drifts off as they talk more, and only wakes up a little bit when he feels the hand on his head tighten a fraction.

"I'm teaching him," says nagyapa, with a grim firmness and determination.

"Good," says his dad. "Me too."

And then the hand resumes stroking his hair, and he falls back asleep.

His dad isn't ever really quite the same, after that. Sadder. Lonelier. He seems happy enough around Stiles, but when he's alone or with a drink, Stiles sees his eyes drift off into the distance.

After the accident, his dad starts taking him to martial arts classes every week. There's Jeet Kun Do and Escrima, and sometimes Karate, and when he starts getting better at those – better with moving his body when he's focused and it matters, better with discipline when he focuses on something more physical and he gets better at all of that because it's a _focus_ , it's a way to stop thinking about _mom_ – a few times a month, his dad gets out his sweats and puts a mat down in the front room and teaches him one-on-one, winking around the words _krav maga_.

Nagyapa visits more often. About once a month, for a weekend, he visits and teaches him how to use a sword, and they play strategy games and they talk.

When he's fourteen, his dad takes him to the range and shows him how put on and take off the safety on a gun. Makes sure that Stiles can hold it an aim and hit the target when he fires; makes sure he can strip and clean a gun, and his dad says it's knowledge only for _emergencies_ and almost stops there, but then Stiles is frowning and asking questions, like what if there's the kind of _emergency_ that needs a gun but he can't find the same kind that he practiced with?

His dad considers him for a long moment, and nods, and then they go to the room in the police department where holy _batman_ that's a lot of guns. And his dad makes sure he can at least hit the target with every one of them.

And Stiles thinks that's it, his life can't really get any busier or more dangerous than learning how to use his fists and guns and knives and swords.

And then freaking _werewolves_, man.


End file.
